Throughout my stay in Hong Kong, it was almost hotel food from morning till night. Fortunately, on my last day, I managed to venture out to try all those yummy Hong Kong food everyone has been talking about.

Wing Wah Noodle Shop was a place that my colleague and I found by chance. We were walking along Hennessy Road in Wan Chai to look for food when we saw Wing Wah. It had newspaper cutting featuring their restaurant at their front door hence we thought this place would be good.

There was also a small article outside the restaurant saying that Wing Wah is listed as one of the Hong Kong Michelin Guide Budget Restaurant for 2009 for their culinary expertise in noodles and desserts. It was definitely worth a try.

I ordered a bowl of dried beef Wan Tan Mee while my colleague ordered the roasted pork dried Wan Tan Mee. Although called ‘dried’ noodles, it came in a small bowl filled with soup. It was small like McDonald’s Kid’s Happy Meal!

Nevertheless, the meal was tasty. The noodles was springy and the soup was unique. No wonder they were voted one of the best.

Also, if you’re around the area, drop by Aida Food Stall to try their Kai Tan Peng (literally means Egg Biscuits). Hard from the outside but soft in the inside.

However, you may want to avoid other foodstuff there. Read some reviews and they say that Ada’s food sucked.

In each APAA event, the event organisers would set out a few excursions for participants to attend. Macau was one of the excursions but unfortunately, it was fully booked and they gave me my second choice, the Peak and Stanley Market tour. I had no idea where these places are as I didn’t bother to do research.

We were sheeped to Stanley Market through buses. The drive was pretty scenic as it was along a hill with a view of the sea.

However, Stanley Market was boring. It had nothing interesting to offer. The stuff was almost like those we have in KL except that it is in Hong Kong dollars. I had drinks at Starbucks with a Japanese friend whom I met there.

Notwithstanding the boring market, the view around Stanley Market was fantastic.

There were couple of mini temples and also a well known museum. Also, there is a bar with bank notes from all over the world stuck on the walls and ceiling on the place. The bar is called Smugglers Inn Pub.

After Stanley Market, we were dropped at a tram stop to bring us to the Victoria Peak which has a fantastic view of Hong Kong city and its harbours.

We also took a 45 minutes stroll one of the pathways. Initially we thought it was only 10 to 15 minutes walk but by the time we found out that it takes 45 minutes, we were halfway through the pathway.

After the walk was completed, we were treated with a nice Indian buffet lunch. The trip back was a treat for us as well as we get to enjoy scenic view of the habour.

The lamb rib came on top of a block of wood. Very yummy, comes with a crispy skin.

Spicy Sze Chuan crab came in a basket full of Sze Chuan chilli with soft shell crab hidden amongst the sea of chilli. We had to dig through the chilli to find the soft shell crabs. It was so spicy that I had tears whenever I finish a piece.

3 dishes weren’t enough to fulfill the HKD1000 quota hence we ordered dessert. I ordered a mango pudding which came in the shape of a koi fish. It tasted really good!

This is a good place to bring your clients or to impress someone. Spaces are limited hence make sure you make a booking before going there.

When I first started my career as a lawyer, I never see myself retiring from the profession. I thought I could work past the usual retirement age (65 years old) and probably die in the office. Unfortunately, the reality in life doesn’t permit me to do so. By the time I am old, my physical ability would deteriorate, my brain wouldn’t work as fast as now and my business contacts would either be dead or retired. In short, I would not make as much money as I could. Say goodbye to traveling and good food.

I did a test on retirement calculator on Prudential’s website, http://www.whatsyournumber.com.my and based on the results, I would need at least RM3million for me to live comfortably until I am 90 years old!

I may need to work extra hard and a lot of luck to achieve that amount. In the meantime, I could invest in some financial products as the Prudential PRUretirement growth and PRUretirement accumulator (More details at http://www.whatsyournumber.com.my))

The other way is to join Prudential’s “What’s Adam’s Number’ challenge”. The challenge is quite simple – just figure out Adam’s (a fictional character) retirement number and stand a chance to win a share in RM200,000 worth of prizes.

The challenge will run for 4 weeks from 2nd Dec 2009 and in each week, new clues will be revealed to help players get closer to Adam’s number. The Prudential Retirement Calculator is designed specifically to calculate the retirement number using those clues.

The fastest and most accurate answers will win a share of the prizes that comes in the form of a retirement plan, all paid for by Prudential: 1x Grand Prize of RM100,000 placed in a PRUretirement accumulator plan, and 8x consolation prizes of RM12,500 each placed in the same plan. Winners will have a kick start in a retirement plan that will grow in value and provides guaranteed monthly payouts after 10 years, all without any cost to the winners.

Fai set up a challenge for us while bouldering at Mad Monkeyz Climbing Gym. Every route we finished on sight (first time without falling), he will do 5 pull ups. If we fail, we would need to do 5 pull ups.

Most of us managed to finish all the routes on sight and Fai lived up to his words. He probably did 50 over pull ups.

So after all the routes, Eddie and I put a challenge for him. He has to do 3 routes non stop without any additional footholds (place to step). Nevertheless, he can step on his handholds. Every time he finishes 1 route, he would need to climb to the next route (with foothold this time). If he manages to do so, Eddie and I will do 50 pull ups. If he fails, he will do 50 pull ups.

My trip to Hong Kong for the Asian Patents Attorney Association Council Meeting (“APAA”) was fruitful but very tiring. It was held in the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre at Wan Chai.

The road I take to get to the Convention centre everyday. Just 5 minutes walk from my hotel.

A little bit a background of this conference. This yearly conference is basically a meeting for Asian patent attorneys and this year had the record number of participants. 1400 patent attorneys and other professionals of related field attended this 5 days event. There were also other participants outside Asia e.g Europe, US and Africa.

Throughout the entire conference, talks and sub committee meetings were organised by the conference organiser. Although there are many talks and conferences, not many participants attend the them. The ultimate aim for most participants is to network. Through networking, participants may cross refer their work to other participants. For example, a Japanese patent attorney wishes to file a patent in Malaysia would need to seek a Malaysian patent agent to file the patent. With a connection established, the Japanese patent attorney may refer the work to the Malaysian patent attorney.

A typical day for me would start at 9am and would last till 12am. There were times I slept at 2am to do work and wake up at 8 – 9am for meeting. On my last day, I slept at 4am and woke few hours later for a 11am meeting. I was zombified.

Loot for this year. The amount of name cards obtained.

Conference area

However, our schedule was not as hectic as one Japanese firm. They had 13 meetings in a day starting from 9am until 530pm! Thereafter, they went for night receptions until wee hours in the morning!

I stayed in a hotel called Harbourview. It was the most affordable hotel in the list of participating conference hotels.

Looks impressive huh? Check out the view.

Although named Harbourview, my room doesn’t have any view of the harbour. All I had was an office building and a strip of light.

zoomgg the strip of lighttt.. soo beautifullll

Further, on my first night, I woke up in the middle of the night to find the TV turned on by itself -_- Thank god nothing spooky happened after that.

The conference ended with a Gala dinner at the Hong Kong Exhibition and Convention Centre. After the dinner, we adjourned to Lam Kwai Fong for drinks. I was there until 330am and woke up for a 11am meeting few hours later. uuhh..

We had some time for ourselves on our last day. However, I don’t have any friends in Hong Kong thus I didn’t have a place to go. I decided to follow my colleague to Wong Tai Sin Temple, a Taoist temple established in 1921 and also one of the most famous temples in Hong Kong. Those who know me well, I am not very eeer.. religious. In fact, I am agnostic.

There were some old ladies selling joss sticks and other praying materials at the train station. However, other than the joss sticks, other praying materials are not allowed to be brought into the temple.

We dropped by Wong Kok after the temple visit. However, we got lost and ended up at one street selling renovation materials and also offering renovation services. It was extremely boring. We passed by some markets as well. We didnt get to see the well known Lui Yan Kai and Poh Hai Kai.

In regards to food, I didn’t get to try most of the local stuff. I spent most of my time eating hotel food. I didn’t have the chance to explore many places for good Hong Kong food. Hotel food is really expensive. Grand Hyatt Hotel was serving Hainanese chicken rice for HKD200 (around RM100!). Nevertheless, I did get to try a few nice things which I will blog later.

Back from Melbourne! Finally, after 3 weeks of living on a suitcase, I am finally back in KL. Been missing home!

The flight back was quite pleasant. I managed to grab a seat where there were no seats in front of me. Plenty of leg space. However, the problem was that my television screen was broken. The MAS crew was nice enough to place me in the crew seat.

During my flight to Melbourne, I was also fortunate to be able to grab a seat with no seats infront of me.

However, the bloody flight transited for an hour in Jakarta! I thought it was a direct flight to Melbourne and there was no indication that the flight will transit in Melbourne when I bought my ticket! Fking Malaysia Airlines! I know I bought the cheap ticket la, no need do this to me la kanasaaii!!!

When we were transiting in Jakarta, 2 Arabic lady sat next to me..with a baby….FML! Baby was crying the entire journey! The ladies had to take care of the baby throughout the journey. The baby was throwing things around as well.

I had only 2 hours of sleep throughout the 8 hours night flight…uuuh

Further, the ladies spoke no English. They even got me fill up their immigration forms for them. However, we couldn’t complete them cause they had no idea what I was asking them. They couldn’t even tell me what they are doing in Melbourne. They couldn’t even show me their air ticket!

And the worst part was…they left a half eaten carrot in my table.

Yes a half eaten carrot. The baby was biting it and the lady next to me decided to put it on my table.